


What You Are In The Dark

by hanwritesstuff (hannahkannao)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, Studying, Tsukyam Gift Exchange 2016 (2017?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 16:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9193499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahkannao/pseuds/hanwritesstuff
Summary: Late nights aren't anything new.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skell/gifts).



> My contribution to the tsukyamgiftexchange on tumblr! 
> 
> Longer intro note on [my tumblr](http://violist-yamaguchi.tumblr.com/post/155376590566/title-what-you-are-in-the-dark-fandom-haikyuu)!

The poster is neat and organized, just the way Kei likes it. All the outlining is done, the title’s written at the top in purple pen in a simple but interesting script filled with loops and swirls - thanks to Tadashi, of course; Kei’s never been artsy enough for anything like that - and the pictures are laid out in columns, waiting to be glued down. It isn’t anywhere near finished, sure, but it looks good for what it is. And it’ll get done before tomorrow morning. Somehow.

“Hey, Tadashi?” he asks.

“Yeah?” Tadashi asks back, interrupting himself with a yawn. Kei feels bad about not starting to work earlier. Now Tadashi’s tired and they still have plenty of work to do. 

“Did you finish the captions?”

“Yeah, I’m printing them out right now.” Tadashi quickly types something out on his computer. “We just need to glue them onto the poster and we’re done.”

“Good.” Kei looks down at the pictures on the poster paper already. The captions are going to fit just fine. “You can go to bed if you want, I can finish.”

“I wouldn’t do  _ that _ .” Tadashi laughs as the printer buzzes to life. “And you’re sitting on my bed.”

“I can move.” Kei shrugs. 

“It’s okay, really.” Tadashi turns on his desk light and shuts his laptop before he turns around in his chair. “I’ll cut out the captions and you can glue them on.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” 

Tadashi stands up and walks over to the printer. He waits for all the captions to print before he picks them up, carrying them back to his desk and setting them down. “Are we doing borders?”

“We have them on the pictures, so I guess we have to.” Kei eyes the stack of blue construction paper next to him on the bed. “Do you want to cut those out, too?”

“I probably should.” Tadashi sits down again with a sigh. 

“All right.” Kei grabs the stack of paper and holds it out to Tadashi, who takes it and puts it on the desk next to the captions.

He yawns again. “What time is it?”

Kei looks at the alarm clock on Tadashi’s bedside table. “11:42.”

“I thought it was later.”

“Hm.”

They fall silent again as Tadashi starts cutting the captions out. The reason they’re up this late at all is half-procrastination, half-things-that-can’t-be-helped. The project was assigned two weeks ago, but between practice and Kei being at training camp for a week, they haven’t had much time to work, and they’ve spent most of it not working. So here they are.

The poster is their final project in English. Everyone in their class had to pair up and choose a topic to make a poster on that had something to do with a country that had English as an official language. There’s a lot to cover with a topic like NASA, but it’s better than a test.

Doesn’t mean it’s any less work, though. 

“I’m done with half of everything,” Tadashi drawls. He never goes to bed later than eleven unless he has to, and now he seems sleepier than ever.

“Okay, thanks.” Kei turns around and takes the stack of white and blue pieces of paper and starts matching them to the pictures. He doesn’t want to start gluing anything down until he’s sure it’s right; it’ll save him a lot of trouble later.

He starts with the caption about the moon landing. He at least knows where that goes. He sets the blue border down first and the white caption on top of it before he gets off the bed and onto the floor. That’ll probably be easier. 

Next is the Hubble Telescope. That’s one of the words he can pick out right off the bat. He puts it in its place and smooths it out before moving on to the International Space Station. He’s pleased to find that everything is going much faster than he thought it would. After the three captions are set, he starts gluing them down. He has to redo the Hubble one a few times, since he keeps gluing it down crooked, but he can afford that. The glue isn’t dry yet.

“Hey, Tadashi, do you have the other three captions?” he asks. 

There’s no response. Come to think of it, the cutting sound has stopped, too.

“Tadashi?” 

Still nothing.

Kei makes his way up to his feet, looking at the time before he turns around. 12:07. He’s starting to feel a little sleepy himself, and he’s used to staying up later than this. He’s not sure why.

When he turns around, he’s greeted with the image of Tadashi fast asleep at his desk. His head is resting on top of one arm next to the stack of fully-cut captions, which in turn is sitting right next to the stack of fully-cut borders. He looks slightly uncomfortable, but he doesn’t seem to care. He’s never let any weird terrain get in the way of getting to sleep before. 

Kei isn’t exactly sure what to do. He could grab everything off the desk and glue it down and get everything done, but by doing that he’s risking waking Tadashi up, which is something he really doesn’t want to do if he can help it. 

But Tadashi can sleep through pretty much anything, and it’s Kei’s duty to finish the project. So he grabs both stacks of papers in one hand and sits down on the floor again, matching each caption up with its corresponding picture before gluing it down. It doesn't take him that long to finish, but he still lets out a relieved breath when everything’s stuck on, briefly admiring his and Tadashi’s handiwork. It doesn’t look particularly beautiful or anything like that, but it looks like a slightly-better-than-average three-quarters-of-the-way-finished high school English project. He can live with that.

He gently moves the poster closer to the wall so no one steps on it, making sure that nothing on it moves while he's sliding it over. After checking to see that everything’s still intact, he walks back over to the desk, where Tadashi’s still asleep. He looks like he could easily spend the whole night here without getting anywhere close to waking up again.

But falling asleep at a desk is something that Kei knows from personal experience only produces neck cramps and regret, and he really doesn't want Tadashi to wake up in the morning with any kind of pain after he was already up so late. There has to be  _ something _ he can do.

He realizes what that something is once he spots the wheels on the bottom of the chair rolling back away from the desk. It's happening so slowly that it's barely noticeable, but the chair's moving. 

Taking three slow steps on his tiptoes, Kei sneaks over to the desk. His heart pounds in his chest and he wonders if this is even a remotely good idea. Whatever. It's too late to stop now.

He reaches out and grabs the back of the chair, one hand before the other. As soon as he has a strong enough grip on it, he starts pulling back. It’s agonizingly slow, no faster than the chair was moving before, but if he doesn’t want to wake Tadashi up, he can’t go any faster.

When the chair’s far enough away from the desk, Tadashi’s head slides off the end of the desk and he stirs for a second but doesn’t wake up. He leans back, head resting against the back of the chair, which makes things slightly harder on Kei’s end, but he doesn’t really mind. 

Kei finally stops to take a breath when the chair is right next to Tadashi’s bed, and even then, he can’t quite figure out what to do next. He wants to get Tadashi from the chair to the bed somehow, but he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do that. Should he just pick him up and carry him over? Pick up the chair and dump him out onto the bed and hope for the best? Neither of those seem like things he would do, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Tadashi isn’t  _ that _ heavy, right?

“...Huh?”

Before Kei can even make a move, Tadashi’s already waking up, and he looks ridiculously cute doing it. He blinks his eyes open slowly, eyebrows scrunched together as he looks up into Kei’s eyes. “...What’s going on?”

“You fell asleep at your desk.”

Tadashi’s eyes widen for a split second before he sighs. “Did I?” 

Kei nods. “I finished the poster, though. You did more than enough work and I didn't want to wake you up.”

“Yeah, but I feel bad about it now.” Tadashi frowns. 

“There wasn’t a lot left to do.”

“...Then what were you doing?”

Kei can feel his cheeks turning bright red. He can’t say what he was doing, that’s stupid, but he can’t exactly lie either. He’s never been able to lie to Tadashi  _ at all _ , certainly not well. “Well, I was -” He couldn’t say it like that. “I was going to -” He couldn’t say it like that either. “I was about to -” Damn it.

Tadashi laughs, the quiet really-tired-sounding but really-adorable laugh when it's too late to give it everything. “Got it.”

“I - was actually rolling your chair back and..." Kei trails off. Why did he even try? Even telling the truth isn't working for him.

"You don't have to to tell me if you don't -"

"This is stupid but I was rolling your chair over here because I thought you looked uncomfortable and I was going to try to carry you back to your bed or something even though I'm definitely not strong enough for that -"

"Wait,  _ what _ ?" Tadashi smiles in disbelief, and the look in his eyes says that he's clearly judging Kei at least a little. Dammit, he's already embarrassed enough as is. He actually  _ rambled _ about something, and now he's being judged for it. Not fair.

"Yes, now can we change the subject?"

"That's so sweet!" Tadashi gushes. 

"Really?"

"Yes." Tadashi sits up and stretches his arms up above his head before crawling over the gap between the chair and the bed. He doesn't even touch the floor. "Come on."

"What?" Kei blinks.

With a tiny, slightly-sleepy smirk, Tadashi wraps his arms around Kei's waist and pulls him onto the bed until they're lying right next to each other. They're looking right into each other's eyes when Tadashi giggles, still hugging him. "I  _ said _ , come on." 

Well, Kei knew this would turn into a cuddle session eventually. 

"How dare you take advantage of me like that?" He whispers.

The moonlight sparkles in Tadashi's eyes as he smiles, subtly letting go. "What are you talking about?"

He tilts his head up and presses a quick, tired kiss to Kei's lips and lets it linger, leaving Kei with no choice but to reciprocate for the short time it lasts. It's soft and simple; their lips barely touch and they're both about to fall asleep anyway. Kei's still glad to find out that he's in the perfect position to smell the strawberry-scented shampoo in Tadashi's hair.

After a few seconds, Tadashi doesn't pull away but rather falls out of the kiss, letting his head rest on the pillow. He sighs contentedly, closing his eyes with a smile as he rolls onto his back. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately, in this case - there isn't enough room for Kei to do the same. 

"Don't move," Tadashi whispers, the only sound in the room this late at night. 

"I won't," Kei whispers back. The next second, he feels a pair of thin arms wrap themselves around his torso as Tadashi snuggles in closer, resting his head on top of one of Kei's arms and essentially pinning it down. "May I ask why now?"

"You're warm," Tadashi murmurs, his voice muffled up by the fabric of Kei's shirt.

"We're lying on top of three blankets."

"It's not the same." Tadashi stops for a few seconds, like he doesn't want to say any more on the subject before he starts talking again. "If you don't like it -"

"No, I like it." Kei means that part, he really does. He's just not good at talking, especially past midnight. He takes the arm that isn't pinned down and wraps it around Tadashi's shoulder. For emphasis.

"Good." Tadashi already sounds like he's falling asleep again. "The alarm's set, right?"

"7:05."

"Perfect." He gets even closer, his voice dropping down to a whisper. "'Night."

"Goodnight," Kei whispers back before closing his eyes and drifting off, out like a light in under a minute. Sure, he's not going to get as much sleep as he wants to, and the pictures on the poster are probably a little crooked since he glued them on in the dark, but that's okay.

He’ll definitely sleep better this way.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm glad this is the start to my fic year <3
> 
> Tumblr: [hanwritesstuff](hanwritesstuff.tumblr.com)/[violist-yamaguchi](http://violist-yamaguchi.tumblr.com)


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